


GAUNTLET – It’s the End of the World (I Feel Fine)

by RawWriting



Series: Stony Tiny Bang 2018 [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Grief, M/M, post IW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 21:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15981146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RawWriting/pseuds/RawWriting
Summary: Tony used Extremis, and the clock spun backwards for his body. He gathered the fallen shreds of his life, and powered through the losses. But for a man who has lost everything, what is the prospect of potential immortality but a fancy way of saying hell?





	GAUNTLET – It’s the End of the World (I Feel Fine)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [victory/defeat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065165) by [Sunnyzhp22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnyzhp22/pseuds/Sunnyzhp22). 



Tony stared at the suits. It had been- not nearly long enough. He eyes the bottle, the label is blacked over from the scorch marks and the kisses to his walls from blasts still curl and smoke a little. The entire month has been- awful. Horrible. Terrible? Yeah, no good. He eyes the bottle again, and drags the edge of the table closer. He might, possibly, be a little drunk.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing, at all, _Matters_ , anymore. He is, tired. He is so sick of everything. He is exhausted. And there is no Pepper, or the maybe baby and all that had been tied up in dreams of a family. There is no Happy, and the lovable oafery to cover real concern. There is no Peter with his endless enthusiasm and incredible mind asking new questions that leave him stumped. There is only the burn of scotch, and the kiss of fire. There is only an angry May, and an even angrier media. He is no longer bleeding, and the world is broken, and he has stopped a dozen crises, crisises? None of it matters.

Because he is alone. Sure, there is Rhodey- yet another person he failed. And there is Romanov with her sad scared eyes and Barton with his judgement hanging in every scowl, there is the council and the UN and the task forces and the commissions and the scrambling mad mess of humanity, 4.9 billion people lighter, after power plants and airplanes and a hundred thousand accidents and issues the world over were tallied up. Less than a third of humanity has made it through this- mess.

Shuri, and the girl that had been helping Peter, MJ, are- at least a little ray of light. But he can’t find it in himself to stain that pair of girls with his darkness. With the muck and depression that coats him like a film of greasy oil and a heart of darkness. He feels sick, his heart thunks as if still bruising itself against the reactor- and if he has the nanites boiling away in his body, then well, maybe he deserves this inability to truly maintain this shitfaced part of the grieving process. Maybe- he decides with eyes burning and spilling moisture despite how he struggles to hold them back, this is his hell. This is the world he deserves. Falling apart, broken, alone.

Truly, and utterly, alone.

He startles when a hot, heavy hand comes down on his shoulder. Not heavy, not harsh, but light, comforting heat that fills his senses and eases the ache in his belly, despite how traitorous it feels. He knows that hand. He has loved the man it is attached to, even when he left. Even when he chose another over him. His husband.

Tony’s breath escapes him, and he finds his fingers sliding up, to tangle with Steve’s. To hold on, even as the world seems hell bent on crumbling around them.

Steve slides into the oversized stuffed chair, pulling and moving Tony till he is held close, till he is surrounded by heat and comfort and that steady strength that had been his refuge, once. Tony swallows on a snarl that might also be a sob, for all it chokes him. Soft lips, and tears he can not shed, press to his cheeks and up to his temple. Damp cheek pressing to his hair and that smell, that is purely Steve, fills his senses. Fills his nose so thick and running, with home, despite how he hasn’t had that in- years. Despite how he feels lost and alone, now he is held close while soft rumbling words spill over his ears- too emotional to listen to the exacts, as they pour over him. As Steve holds him, and by holding him- breaks him apart for all the frustration, pain and grief to pour out. Holds him as the whole mess falls apart.

The only thing that matters, in this moment, is that Steve is with him now. Tomorrow- they can talk. They can work on the world, on their marriage, on what the separation meant. They can deal with loss and anger and grief.

In this chair, and in this moment- there is only room for love, and for each other to cling to the other, to their other half. Two husbands reunited, which is what really matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Can loosely be seen as paired with - UNION – A Clean Start (Again)
> 
> PS: Do you know how hard it was to end it there instead of go philosophical? Yeah.


End file.
